1-22-07, 9:21 am
If you watched the president on 60 Minutes this Sunday, you could learn many fascinating things, including the fact that he sees himself as the “educator in chief” – which, of course, occasions the question, “Is our children learning?”
More important, you could learn that he believes that the Iraqi people owe us an enormous debt of gratitude, and that they are in arrears on their payments. When the remarkably ineffectual Scott Pelley asked Bush, “Do you think you owe the Iraqi people an apology for not doing a better job,” he responded with his trademark wit, “That we didn't do a better job or they didn't do a better job?”
He went on to say, “We liberated that country from a tyrant. I think the Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude, and I believe most Iraqis express that. I mean, the people understand that we've endured great sacrifice to help them. That's the problem here in America. They wonder whether or not there is a gratitude level that's significant enough in Iraq,” adding that Americans “wonder whether or not the Iraqis are willing to do hard work necessary to get this democratic experience to survive.”
Although he doesn’t talk about it much, this question of Iraqi gratitude has been an idée fixe for Bush. In 2004, as the transition from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the interim Iraqi government was being planned (the so-called “transfer of sovereignty”), according to Paul Bremer’s self-serving memoir, “My Year in Iraq,” Bush’s only consideration in picking the new leaders of Iraq was, 'It's important to have someone who's willing to stand up and thank the American people for their sacrifice in liberating Iraq.' Ghazi al-Yawer, virtually unknown before and unknown after, was picked as president over senior statesman Adnan Pachachi in part because Bush had 'been favorably impressed with his open thanks to the Coalition.'
In a culture with even the slightest ability for introspection or self-reflexivity, of course, such a notion would be monstrous and laughable. After all, the disaster of the occupation is simply the final entry in a list of the worst calamities in modern Iraqi history, all of which involved U.S. backing – the Iran-Iraq war, the near-genocidal Anfal campaign against the Kurds, the savage suppression of the 1991 uprising, the brutally demoralizing sanctions. After all of that, even if the United States “liberation” of Iraqis from Saddam had made Iraq into a new garden of Eden, to claim that the Iraqis should be grateful to the United States would be a bit rich. Given that the occupation is actually a worse calamity than any of those just mentioned and has come closer to destroying the fabric of Iraqi society than all of them put together, the claim boggles the mind.
Unfortunately, this idea is not just Bush’s insanity; it is bipartisan and it covers most of the American political spectrum. It has emerged as the dominant idea in the public discourse. When Dick Durbin delivered the Democratic response to Bush’s speech about the escalation, a speech even more stomach-churning than Bush’s, this was the core theme: “America has paid a heavy price.” “We have given the Iraqis so much.” “It is time for the Iraqis to stand and defend their own nation.”
Even someone as innocent of foreign policy knowledge as first-out-of-the-gate presidential candidate Tom Vilsack, governor of Iowa, has been sounding that theme; it has become the Democrats’ rallying cry.
To be fair, there has been at least some response to this meme, most notably on the Daily Show, which produced a segment called “They-a Culpa,” about the fact that “Iraqis are to blame for the mess we’ve gotten themselves into.”
Still, overall, the unfortunate message from this is clear: Although we have learned that occupying Arab countries is a bad idea and that George Bush is an ignorant megalomaniac, we have not learned anything deeper about American culture and America’s role in the world from this occupation. And because of that, it’s very likely that some day – not right away, but far too soon – we will make others repeat this miserable experience.
From Empire Notes
--Rahul Mahajan is publisher of the blog Empire Notes and occasionally teaches at New York University. He has been to Iraq twice and reported from Fallujah during the siege in April 2004. His first book, 'The New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism' (April 2002, Monthly Review Press), has been described as 'mandatory reading for anyone who wants to get a handle on the war on terrorism.' His second book, 'Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond' (June 2003, Seven Stories Press), is a wide-ranging look at the war on Iraq, the plans of the Project for a New American Century, and the Bush administration's imperial policies in practice since 9/11.
